


A Lesson in Caution

by mollymaukerie



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Magic Lessons, cheek kissing, cheek slapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 22:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13490664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollymaukerie/pseuds/mollymaukerie
Summary: After the battle with the Nergaliid, Fjord wants to learn some magic to better protect himself and his new allies. Caleb is a willing enough teacher, until they're interrupted.





	A Lesson in Caution

After the defeat of the fiendish Nergaliid, and more importantly the absolution of their names in Trostenwald, the Nestled Nook was a centre of celebration, like every other inn within the town. With mugs and glasses overflowing with fine and poor wines alike, the sound of exuberant song filled the tavern floor as up-and-coming bards devised songs on the spot to a fumbling tune of the tale of the demise of the demon that had disturbed their town. None of their songs were very good, but many of the patrons were too drunk to care.

Smalls towns always find things to celebrate, even if the occasion calls for a more sombre touch. Barely a day or two had passed since the death of four citizens, two of which were Crown’s Guard, and yet a great number of frequent tavern patrons were still spending their evenings praising the names of those who had slain the creature responsible and put an end to the matter, _avenging_ those that had died during its presence in Trostenwald.

And still, despite having been confined to the inn for a great deal of those few days, Fjord took a measure of comfort in the upper level of the Nestled Nook, where the singing from below was muted and he could rest after the trying battle that had been just a day prior. The morning had been spent at the Lawmaker’s office, receiving formal recognition that his name, as well as the others in his company, were cleared.

Sleep was hard to come by though, and when his mind wandered back to how he had fallen unconscious in the battle against the Nergaliid, the thought of sitting still didn’t appeal much either.

Opposite him in the room he rented was Mollymauk, who sat somewhat reclined on the bed he had claimed whilst dabbing a cloth coated in an herbal tonic to a wound in his shoulder – to neutralize the poison lingering in his system. He hissed and growled under his breath, grumbling Infernal curses all the while.

It was impossible for Fjord to not notice the dozens of scars that littered Mollymauk’s chest, little nicks and slashes that cut across even parts of his throat. He recalled the way the blood that he’d drawn onto his weapon had solidified into ice. It had a magical element to it, Fjord was certain of it, but what kind, he wasn’t sure. He was curious of magic, eager to learn it, and if it could be useful, why not try?

“Hey, Molly,” Fjord said after clearing his throat.

It was hard to tell sometimes when Mollymauk was looking directly at someone, what with the pure red colouring of his sclera and the utter lack of an iris and pupil altogether. There was a slight shift to his head, however, an upward tilt of the chin, and it was enough to know he’d caught Mollymauk’s attention.

“Hm? Something on your mind?” Mollymauk hummed the words and directed his gaze back towards the throbbing wound at his shoulder.

“That, uh…that thing you do, with your swords? What is that, exactly?” he asked, unable to disguise the curious lilt to his voice. “It’s magic, right?”

Across from him, Mollymauk let out a laugh, wholehearted and amused at the question, and a half-cocked grin tugged at his lips.

“I could spin a yarn about how the things I do are marvellous and fantastical, which they are mind you, but I’m afraid it’s a little more complex than that,” he said as he rolled his shoulder back, testing the movement of the muscle with a slight hiss. “And to be frank, I rather think the truth of it would only disappoint you in that regard, and I hate to disappoint my friends.”

“So, not something you’d be willing to teach?” Fjord asked, not buying his words even for a moment.

“You’ve plenty scars enough on that handsome face, friend,” Mollymauk replied, that pupil-less gaze sliding over him with a noticeable admiration before he refocused on tending to his injury. “If you’re so restless, why not ask Caleb? I’m sure he has a trick or two he could teach you.”

Fjord curled his upper lip in thought with a slight nod of his head before thanking Mollymauk for the suggestion. Swinging his weight forward, he lifted himself off his bed, and Mollymauk gave him a slight wave as he exited the room. Fjord closed the door behind him, just barely avoiding colliding with a couple swaying and collapsing into an adjacent room.

Briefly, Fjord hoped they passed out before they got to anything too handsy, and then made his way down the narrow hall to Caleb’s room. With a sharp knock at the door and hearing Caleb’s quiet voice beyond it beckoning him in, Fjord entered and found Caleb sat cross-legged on his bed. The large coat he wore was shucked and laid out on the bed beside him, and one of the two books he had acquired the day before sat neatly over his knees. He was plainly dressed otherwise, albeit still with some stains from the dirt and muck the night before. And the night before that, and so on.

The book he had was open well and truly beyond it’s midway point, and for such a thick tome, Fjord was impressed Caleb had already read that much of it in the span on a day.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” Fjord began, gesturing to the book Caleb appeared to have been reading.

“No, no, not at all, I was just enjoying the peace,” Caleb replied with a slight laugh, gently sliding his finger along the corner of the book’s pages and lifting them slightly. “Can I help you? Nott isn’t causing trouble downstairs, is she?”

“Not that I’ve heard, I think she and Jester are still playing cards,” Fjord said, reaching for a chair that was propped against the wall. He dragged it forward, facing the back toward Caleb and sitting down it in, hanging his arms over its back. “I was just wondering…well, you and I got a little blind-sided in that last fight, and I don’t really like the idea of that happening again any time soon.”

“I can’t say that being unconscious and a hair's breadth from death was an experience I’d like to repeat either,” Caleb said, his lips quirking into a little smile. The thought hadn’t really left their minds, yet it hadn’t quite set in all the same, just how close a call it had been. Something to be addressed when the world as they knew it didn’t seem to be turning so fast.

“Exactly, and with that in mind, I was wondering if there is any kind of magic that you might be able to teach me to avoid that in future,” he replied, gripping the back of the chair as he leaned forward just a little.

“Well…I mean, I’m not a professional tutor or anything but I could try?” Caleb said thoughtfully, a question of ability posed more to himself than Fjord as he closed the tome in his lap and carefully set it aside. “Are you thinking of evocation magic or–”

“–Evocation? You mean like the other day when you were flinging fire and ice around?” Fjord asked, unable to hide his lower-fanged grin.

“Yes, but let’s…start with something simpler, maybe? Just to be safe, that is– not that they are difficult spells, but how about something less likely to result in a fire?” Caleb asked in turn, not bothering to be discreet with how he tucked his tome under his cloak for safe-keeping.

“I’m eager to learn, so let’s do it,” Fjord said as he stood for a moment, turning the chair around and sitting back down in it and scooting it forward to face Caleb squarely.

“Now?” Caleb asked with wide eyes surprised.

“Is now a bad time?”

“Well, I suppose not, but…hm…”

Caleb fell silent for a moment, scratching the side of his thinly bearded cheek in thought. Then, he pulled at the edge of his coat, opening it and tugging out a different book, a tome that had be firmly held in a strange holster. He opened it carefully, balancing the tome squarely in his palm to support the spine as he slowly turned the pages.

Fjord caught sight of a dozen pages of handwritten notes, written almost to the edge of the page itself, with careful linking lines, diagrams, and entire pages dedicated to nothing save intricate runic sigils. Caleb turned the pages slowly, skimming the information briefly before settling on a page. He pulled a journal from a bag at the foot of his bed, opening it to an empty page and taking portable inkwell out as well.

With a featherless quill in hand, he began to quickly transcribe the information of the two open pages in front of him. Fjord waited patiently, watching the way his hand moved carefully over the page, careful not to smudge the wet ink. Though his hands were scratched and a little dirty, with old ink smudges and some dirt he had yet to wash away, the care he showed in writing out the information before him was almost rigid, calculated, something hardwired into him. After finishing a sketch of what seemed a basic runic symbol, consisting of a single swirling line that curled around itself before forming straight and cutting through itself, Caleb closed the tome and set it aside.

He scooted forward to the edge of his bed with the open journal page in hand, turning it around to face Fjord so he could read the small notes Caleb had written alongside it. His handwriting was small, which Fjord guessed was to make space for as many words as possible, but neat and legible. There was no flourish to the lettering; it was simple and practical.

“This is the somatic sigil for a spell, a cantrip actually, that wards against physical damage. It only lasts a short while, and it doesn’t make you invincible by any means, but it might be the difference between a deadly blow and one you could walk away from,” Caleb explained, allowing Fjord to take hold of the journal himself to pull it closer to read.

“And this ward protects the caster from damage?” Fjord asked.

“Yes, and no, the ward will absorb a portion of the damage, but it can’t for very long,” Caleb said again, “I’ll demonstrate.”

Fjord lifted his gaze from the page, watching as Caleb raised a hand and began to trace the sigil in the air. The moment he began, the tip of his index finger began to pulse with a faint gold light, and a fading streak of arcane light drifted away from his finger as he drew the sigil in the air before him. In a common tongue, he spoke the spell’s command, invoking rites of protection and warding. When he completed the somatic gesture, the arcane sigil dispersed, but Fjord could see the faintest shimmer around Caleb’s form; the ward was set.

“Hit me.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You have five seconds to hit me, do it.”

“Caleb, I can’t just–”

“–Three–”

As Fjord lifted his hand to swing upward with a gentle, open-palmed slap, the door swung open and collided with the wall, startling him. Jester and Nott entered, grinning ear to ear with a hat full of copper coins – a hat that didn’t even belong to them – just as Fjord’s hand struck the side of Caleb’s face. Or rather, the ward, which shone with a honey-gold glow upon impact. Caleb’s head shifted from the slap, but only just, and after a moment, the ward dissipated, falling away in flecks of golden sand that vanished before they touched the ground.

At the door, Jester’s mouth was agape, and Nott was already in the process of unsheathing the shortsword at her hip.

“Fjord–! Why would you–!”

“Caleb! What’s happening? Do you need me to stab him?”

“Don’t stab him! Fjord why did you hit him?”

“I didn’t– I mean I did but– he asked me to!”

It took several long moments to explain, and several more still to get Nott to sheathe her shortsword, which had been pointed directly at Fjord’s knee the entire time. Caleb explained he was teaching Fjord a warding spell and offered a demonstration, but Caleb didn’t get half-way through the explanation in and of itself before Jester was clapping her hands together and asking if she could try it too.

She had slapped Caleb across the cheek before he had even had a chance to refuse her or even recreate the warding cantrip, and this time the blow shook his head and left him holding onto his cheek.

Nott, once again close to drawing her sword, only put it away when Caleb sat upright and laughed it off, forcefully, saying that it was alright, she didn’t have to go stabbing her newfound friend for his sake, though Nott argued that she’d do so for him.

Jester offered a bubbly apology, although it heavily implied Caleb shouldn’t make himself so slapable if he didn’t want to be slapped. With a quick shift though, she leaned and offered a slight kiss to his cheek, one to make it feel better, she claimed. When she turned away, Caleb dragged the edge of his hand across his cheek, as if to wipe it away with a slight look of embarrassment at the whole situation. Then, she turned to Fjord, her smile wide and devious.

“Now you,” she said while pointing at Caleb.

“Now me?” Fjord repeated, confused.

“Now you give him a kiss-better,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“I don’t think I need to–” Fjord began, sending a wary side-long look to Caleb, who sent one towards him in turn, sharing that look of bashfulness in the moment.

“–Yours was plenty enough Jester, I feel better already,” Caleb tried to explain.

“You got hit twice but kissed-better only once, that doesn’t add-up,” Jester mused and waggled her finger back and forth in front of them.

At her hip, Nott nodded. “Thems’ is the sum of it,” Nott said, not realising Caleb’s reluctance towards the idea.

“It’s not necessary,” he added, hastily.

“But Jester just gave you one, does another matter? Is it the fangs?” Nott asked, baring her teeth and using her fingers to mime the slight fangs that protruded from Fjord’s lower lip. “They point upwards so I doubt they’d hurt, unless you got one in your eye, I guess.”

“It’s not the fangs–”

“Are you rejecting him because of his fangs, Caleb? That’s so mean,” Jester said with a sincerity that seemed too fake to be real and yet too genuine to mistake for, well, a jest.

“I’m not rejecting– I’m not– look, fine, it’s fine, just get it over with,” Caleb said hurriedly, his face flushed red in embarrassment from how long the conversation had continued altogether.

“I won’t if it makes you uncomfortable,” Fjord interjected, not all that willing to give Caleb reason to avoid him, not when he had just found an opportunity to learn some spells from him.

“It’s fine, it’s just a kiss on the cheek, it means nothing,” Caleb said again, just as quickly as he had before, clearly wanting the matter over and done with.

“It’s doesn’t mean _nothing_ Caleb, it–”

“–Jester, you are not helping.”

“I am always helping, thank you very much.”

“You can help by being quiet.”

With a huff, Jester put a hand over her mouth, but didn’t draw her eyes away, waiting expectantly on Fjord to make a due apology for hitting Caleb. Nott covered her mouth as well, even though she didn’t need to, perhaps thinking it might help as well.

Fjord heaved a sigh and turned to Caleb, fixing him with a brief apologetic expression. Caleb merely shrugged and turned his head while leaning forward, waiting for it to be over and done with. Fjord leaned, lifting out of his seat slightly, and brushed his lips against Caleb’s cheek, his lip curling slightly as his beard tickled his chin.

He sat back down after, and Caleb turned to Jester with a ‘ _are you happy?_ ’ expression as she let her hand drop, revealing a large smile.

“I don’t see what was so hard about that!”

“Are you done?”

“Hmpf! Fine, I’ll go count out all my coin by myself then!”

“Wait, some of those are mine!”

Nott chased after Jester as she left the room in a hurry, her cloak swaying on her way out and almost blinding Nott as it drifted over her form. Fjord and Caleb were left in a moment of silence, listening to Jester’s footsteps disappear down the hall, followed but Nott’s tiny boots padding after her and then back to drag the door shut behind her, but not before she stuck her hand in to wave goodbye to Caleb.

Clearing his throat, Fjord looked back down at the journal on his lap, looking over the sigil once more with a careful gaze before directing that upward to Caleb.

“Maybe we can, uh, continue this another time,” he suggested, not foolish enough to ignore the tension that had settled in the room.

“Yes, another time. Perhaps when Jester is more occupied,” Caleb said with a slight chuckle.

“Just us, then,” Fjord said, extending his arm to return the journal to him.

Caleb smiled, and the flush in his cheeks hadn’t quite died down, adding a nice rosy colour under pale blue eyes. “That sounds much better,” he replied, taking back his journal.

With a nod and a quick but polite good evening, Fjord left Caleb’s room and returned to his own. Mollymauk had finished tending to his wounds, and was fully dressed once more, and reading away at some trashy novel he had picked up downstairs from one of the patrons.

Fjord lay back down onto his own bed with a heavy huff, letting the air completely vanish from his lungs in a moment to let himself relax.

Across from him, he heard Mollymauk ask; “So, what did you learn?”

“I learned Jester can be a pain in the backside,” he said and crossed his arms behind his head.

“I figured you would have known that, seeing as you’ve known her the longest. Did she spoil your little lesson?”

Fjord thought for a moment. A smile slowly tugged at his lips, knowing that it hadn’t been a waste of a visit. He’d learned a little from Caleb, and now he had an opportunity to learn more, without another such distraction in the foreseeable future.

Jester may have just been playing around, but her teasing had guaranteed him another lesson. Though he much would have preferred having the chance to actually practice the warding cantrip himself.

“Something like that,” he replied. “It’s not the end of the world, though. We’ll just try again another time.”

“How fun.”

In the back of his mind, Fjord couldn’t deny that it had been a sight to see Caleb flushed and flustered, and a slight chuckle escaped his throat at the memory of it.

“Fun indeed.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: mollymaukerie.


End file.
